This invention relates generally to connecting brackets for assembling frame members and more particularly, relates to brackets for positioning two or more frame members perpendicular to each other.
Brackets for angularly interconnecting elongate construction members are known and have been widely employed by prior workers in the art. The configurations of the prior art brackets vary widely, depending upon their intended use. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,431, issued to Burvall teaches a connecting element consisting of two sleeves which are oriented at one hundred and twenty degrees to each other in the same plane, and a third sleeve which is open at both ends and which passes through the juncture of the first two sleeves at ninety degrees to the plane that they define. The one hundred and twenty degrees angle between two of the sleeves facilitates the construction of a A-shaped roof structure. U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,931,129 and 3,740,084 disclose other bracket configurations which are suitable for angularly interconnecting elongate construction elements.
However, the three cited patents do not suggest and do not anticipate a three sleeve connecting bracket which can permit a frame member to pass through each sleeve whereby each of three frame members could extend completely through a sleeve. While not heretofore shown in a three sleeve bracket, the concept is embodied in a two sleeve bracket in U.S. Pat. No. 1,848,085 issued to Eisenschmidt. The Eisenschmidt design contempletes the angular securing together of two frame members in a manner which permits them to intersect without one of them having to be physically affixed to the other.
In all prior art designs for three-directional sleeve brackets of which I am aware, none include a third sleeve that does not intersect one of the first two. For example, in the jointed structure illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,037,736, there is disclosed a bracket that permits assembly of three structural members to form a right angle corner, but one structural member is always prevented from extending through the bracket by the intersection of one of the other structural members.
Applicant has solved the previously existing difficulty by adding a third sleeve to two non-intersecting sleeves, which third sleeve is itself non-intersecting of the other two.